Hot Rod Builder Roy Brizio Tells Us How to Build For 40 Years

Roy Brizio grew up around his father’s South San Francisco speed shop and turned that upbringing into one of hot rodding’s most respected builder names. His 1987 America’s Most Beautiful Roadster win put him on the map, and clients like Eric Clapton and Neil Young have kept him building for over four decades. Here is the story behind one of hot rodding’s quiet legends.

In a Rolling Stone article a few years ago, seminal guitar player Jeff Beck said he almost quit playing guitar to go to work building hot rods at Roy Brizioâ€™s South San Francisco shop. There is almost a cult to the building of cars from Roy Brizio Street Rods. Royâ€™s been one of the most prolific builders of hot rods ever.

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Jeff Beck almost walked away from guitar entirely to go build hot rods for a living. That’s not a rumor, it’s a story the Rolling Stone-caliber guitarist has told himself about a shop in South San Francisco run by a man named Roy Brizio. Beck isn’t even the most famous name on Brizio’s client list, not by a long shot. For more than four decades, one shop has quietly built cars for rock legends, movie stars, and hundreds of everyday rodders, all while staying almost entirely under the radar of anyone outside the hot rod world. How did a kid who grew up around his father’s speed shop end up building for some of the biggest names in music?

A Hot Rod Legacy Passed Down

Roy Brizio was born in San Francisco in 1956, the son of hot rod pioneer Andy Brizio, who ran Champion Speed Shop in South San Francisco during the golden era of California hot rodding in the fifties and sixties. Roy grew up immersed in that world, eventually hanging his own shingle, Roy Brizio Street Rods, out of a corner of his father’s shop before opening his own dedicated space in 1977, just down the road from where his business still operates today.

The Trophy That Put Him on the Map

Roy’s reputation grew steadily through the eighties, culminating in 1987 when he entered a Ferrari V12-powered 1932 Ford roadster, built for owner James Ells, at the Oakland Roadster Show. That car took home America’s Most Beautiful Roadster, the single biggest prize in hot rodding, and put Roy Brizio Street Rods firmly on the map as a shop capable of building show-stopping cars, not just clean, reliable street rods.

Building for Rock Royalty

Roy’s most enduring client relationship is with rock and blues legend Eric Clapton, for whom he has built fourteen cars over the years, including right-hand-drive versions for Clapton’s driving in the UK. Neil Young brought Roy a 1959 Lincoln Continental to rework with electric power, and by 2001 business was strong enough that Roy moved his shop into its current, larger location on Railroad Avenue, a space that has hosted decades of builds for clients most people never hear about.

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